Bid For Indy Sequel

Simmons Hopes Full-time Ride Comes After 500

NEW YORK — As the shutters clicked along a busy thoroughfare in lower Manhattan Monday, Jeff Simmons stood smiling, his driver's suit on, helmet under his arm.

There was confidence in knowing when his next race will be.

He was there with the other 32 drivers in the starting lineup for Sunday's Indianapolis 500.

But unlike most of the other drivers standing around him for the photo shoot at the Charging Bull statue, Simmons doesn't know where racing will take him after Sunday.

A year ago, that wasn't something Simmons was worried about.

Last year, the East Granby native was making his second Indy 500 start for Rahal Letterman Racing, which hired him early in 2006 after Paul Dana was killed before the season.

But what seemed two years ago to be Simmons' opportunity of a lifetime - his first full-time ride with an established IndyCar Series team - he now views with bitterness.

Last July, Simmons, 31, was fired by Rahal Letterman (co-owned by Bobby Rahal and David Letterman) just before the season's 12th race.

Sunday, Simmons will run his one-race deal for A.J. Foyt Enterprises then hit the pavement doing what he has been doing since last July: searching for another full-time ride.

"I'm still working hard to try to get myself in a position where I have a really strong team around me and I can show what I know I can do," said Simmons, who last September married Stephanie (a television reporter and former Colts cheerleader).

"I'd like to have that chance for a full season. Hopefully I can have a strong run with A.J. and maybe that will lead to something in the future. Hopefully it will. I'm not giving up anything yet."

After finishing second in the IRL's developmental series in 2004 and '05, Simmons joined Rahal Letterman for the third race of the 2006 season.

In 23 starts, Simmons had 11 top-10 finishes, but also several crashes, which reportedly put him out of favor with Rahal, a former Indy 500 winner.

Though Simmons said he could see the writing on the wall, he was still surprised by the way the team fired him three days before the race at Mid-Ohio.

"In some ways, I could see Bobby didn't really want me running there for a while," Simmons said. "I think he was trying to find excuses and reasons to get rid of me, and he was finally able to convince the sponsors that they needed to make a change, and that's what they did."

Simmons had top-10 finishes in five of his last nine races with Rahal Letterman and a career-best finish of 11th at Indy, where he will be making his fourth career start Sunday.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, who replaced Simmons, has five top-10 finishes .

"I know that I got as much, if not more, out of the car than anybody would," said Simmons, whose best finish was sixth (at Texas last year). "We had bad breaks here and there. There were lots of mistakes made in various parts of the team. It was very disappointing how it was done with a phone call when I was already at the race for the next event.

"With Bobby, I can't say much. He wasn't the one that actually called me and fired me. To be honest, he hadn't said a word to me before that or after that. But that wasn't anything real surprising because he didn't really ever even say 'Hi' to my family when they were ever at a race. That's just what you're dealing with with him."

Simmons, who has been an open-wheel racer since he was a teen, is looking at all avenues, including stock car racing.

"It's hard not to be tempted [by NASCAR], especially by the money that's being made over there, and the number of fans that they get and the competition as well," said Simmons, whose 35-year old brother, Chris, is the lead engineer for Dan Wheldon's car at Target Chip Ganassi Racing.

"You've got 40-something guys on the track racing for a win week in and week out. That sort of competition is a big draw. That's why most of us are in it, for the challenge and the competition. NASCAR offers that. But right now still I love open-wheel racing. I love the road courses, I love the speed of it, the technology of it and a lot of that stuff you don't really get in stock cars, or to a much less degree. But I won't deny that I've been close to going to a couple places [outside open wheel] this year."